by: Ellen C. Caldwell
for JSTOR Daily
In the April 1997 “Puppy Episode” of the show Ellen, Ellen DeGeneres officially came out. DeGeneres simultaneously came out in character and in real life, appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show with her girlfriend and gracing the cover of Time Magazine along with large text reading: “Yep, I’m Gay.”
In an article for the radical feminist periodical off our backs just a month later, Laura B. recorded some of the immediate aftermath of the episode. She noted that a local network in Birmingham, AL, deemed the episode inappropriate for viewers and “refused to broadcast it.” Big companies like Chrysler, General Motors, and Johnson & Johnson pulled their advertising, while meanwhile, ABC refused alternative commercials from both the Human Rights Campaign and Olivia Cruises and Resorts, a lesbian-oriented vacation company….